Sotheby's Sells Bacon for $21.5 Million

The contemporary art market chugged ahead Tuesday at a $116.4 million Sotheby's sale in London, led by a $21.5 million Francis Bacon triple portrait purchased by a longtime German collector.

The buyer of Bacon's 1980 "Three Studies for a Self-Portrait" was Juergen Hall, a tobacco tycoon who lives near Cologne. Mr. Hall beat out a pair of telephone bidders for the three up-close views of Bacon's face, which Sotheby's had...